


From the Lights to the Pavement

by infiniteandsmall



Series: if their Heaven ain't got a vacancy [2]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Badbrains, Found Family, Gen, Gender Issues, Genderqueer Character, Killjoys family 4eva, Mental Health Issues, Queer Themes, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3254126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteandsmall/pseuds/infiniteandsmall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The highway is very sharp and the sun is so long, endless rubber on road. The wind whips Kobra’s greasy hair away from zir gritty forehead, and zie is smiling in the shotgun seat.</p><p>G drums his free hand on the steering wheel and sings. His voices gasps and gulps, swoops high, growls low. It is a lullaby set to a punk song, and Kobra could fall asleep in the sun like a cat. Zie misses The Girl, with an ache that is niggling and vicious by turns, but zie knows they’re safe with Doctor D. and Pony. Much safer than they’d be with them.<br/>~<br/>Keep running. Kobra grows into zir skin, and new names are getting bigger. Part two of a continuing series about an origin story for the Fabulous Killjoys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Lights to the Pavement

The highway is very sharp and the sun is so long, endless rubber on road. The wind whips Kobra’s greasy hair away from zir gritty forehead, and zie is smiling in the shotgun seat.

G drums his free hand on the steering wheel and sings. His voices gasps and gulps, swoops high, growls low. It is a lullaby set to a punk song, and Kobra could fall asleep in the sun like a cat. Zie misses The Girl, with an ache that is niggling and vicious by turns, but zie knows they’re safe with Doctor D. and Pony. Much safer than they’d be with them.

~

They crisscross zones, adding One and Three and Two and Five like a kid’s math problem, and multiply that by gas money and mile meters. From the outer zones to the inner, making their way from rest stop to rest stop to gas station to overnight house.

Sometimes Kobra wonders if zie has some sort of physic link to the city. Some kind of microchip in zir brain that tells zir stomach to flip and zir hands to shake.

They’re edging away from the outer zones, the ones that are supposed to be safe. The ones the dracs never reach. And Kobra knows it’s not that simple, but the closer they get to the city the more zir thoughts scatter and shy from zir reach, like the herds of wild ponies that zie and Party would sometimes find by their guard shack. Kobra remembers vividly how they looked one night when they weren’t running scared through, but when the moon had been full and soft and silver and the herd had been snacking on dry plants. Their coats had looked rough but still held enough sheen to look steely in the moonlight, and they hadn’t cared and when Kobra and Party had eased their front door open and slipped out, boots untied on their feet. Kobra thought about the one mare’s soft lips and prickly-whiskered nose, the mare who’s taken zir offered piece of shriveled canned carrot with a slobbery but delicate touch and who’d looked zir right in the eye before turning and ambling off. Kobra thought about that a lot. It was calming. Which was strange, because usually eye contact with strangers made zir skin itch and because the mare had been so close that Kobra had been able to see the clearly defined muscle in the mare’s shoulders and chest. Life was strange. The radio was playing, more static than song. The window rattled hot against Kobra’s check, and zie let zir eyes close.

~

Dr. Death is talking on the radio about a Drac supply storehouse in Zone Two.

“Well, Killjoys, you happen to be about a mile from a bang-up good time, if Show Pony’s not blowin’ smoke. I know you’re new and all. I’m not saying that you have to do anything with this particular piece of information. But if you have as many explosive-making ingredients in that car as I think you do, considering you’ve got Ghoul on board. Well. And now, ladies, gentlemen, rollerbladers, and smash junkies, the newest from Clandestine Crew.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Ghoul jumps in his seat. “I love this man!”

Party is smiling kinda slow, partly like he does when he has an idea, but this time his forehead isn’t pulled tense like it usually is. He turns up the radio that’s playing a song that mostly about deonating Dracs but is also a little bit about Ancient America and how not looking both ways before you turn will fuck you up.

~

They get to the storehouse in about twenty minutes. Jet Star is the getaway driver. Party’s gonna set the bomb, and Ghoul’s gonna detonate it.

Jet opens the driver’s side door and stands outside. The Trans-Am is still running, spewing heat into the already sweltering desert air. Kobra and Ghoul stand outside the back seat passenger’s side as Party swings out of the shotgun seat. He’s got Ghoul’s homemade bomb in one hand and his hair blows in the hot desert winds, sandy but bright flaming red. The storehouse isn’t empty.

Kobra watches him go. His gun hangs loose from his fingers, and his smirk is wicked. Ghoul is weak in the

knees. Her brother is a revving engine. He is a skull-and-crossbones flag on a radio antenna.

White dune buggies. Go for a swim, dracs. Kobra watches the bomb go off with satisfaction, enjoying the blast rattling in zir ribcage. Poison walks away from the x-plosion. His hair is flame red. There is a smudge of ash on his cheek and he has two black thumbs.

Ghoul grabs him around the waist and gets an arm around Kobra’s neck. They run, laughing, and Jet’s pressed his foot to the gas when they’ve barely closed the doors. Somehow, it is still careful. It’s Jet’s way.

Zir brother arches his back, bites his lip, gloating. He is not-so-subtly checking himself out in the rearview mirror, and she can read the internal dialogue in his head by the arch of his eyebrow at himself.  _I’m the hot girl. It’s me. Da-a-amn._

~

They told each other everything. Even if it wasn’t in words, zie remembers the way G had looked up at zir through his eyelashes as he sketched a version of himself as Party with a curve to his waist like a BL/ind supermodel. G has a sharp tilt to his hips, a sway to his walk. He’s always liked to play, dropping his wrist and tilted his chin and fluttering his eyelashes. He was the one they cracked down on. A stronger dose, M—Kobra, zie said fiercely to zirself.

_With zir feet in the air and zir head in the ground._

“A stronger dose.” The man in the white coat with the silver stethoscope. He looked just like he did on TV.

M is standing outside her bedroom. She has never felt more alone.  Her nightgown is white and it is soft on her bare legs. The white tile is cold underfoot, even through her white socks. She is not crying, but her head hurts and her heart hurts and her stomach hurts. Zir head is heavy—her head is pinned to the ground from the weight of her braid down her back. And. M’s head hurts. The words crack down on her, they rain like helium bombs and atom fires.

“You behave like a Confused. Would you like to go to a reorientation center, G?”

“Think of your sister. Think of what a harmful influence you are being on her!”

“G, you must take it.”

_Take the pill._

_Take the pill_

_Take the pill._

“Gerard,” she says when he sneaks into her bedroom and curls up around her, the edges of his eyes ragged.

“Gerard,” she says, again, when her eyes sting and his breath is soft on her cheek. “Sing me to sleep,” she sing-songs in a whisper, and her voice is out of tune, her voice is no good, her voice is baby-boozed and med-addled. She has two pills before she brushes her teeth and two after. But Gerard, but G—chase the blues, chase the reds, he is her stained glass brother, and their song is on the secret radio airwaves. He can’t forget. And he doesn’t.

He is Mikey’s brother. And he strokes her hair, and sings—“sing me to sleep,”

 —“Sing me to sleep, I’m tired and I want to go to bed,” G was singing, and his voice, raspy and heavy and tearful. His voice had been soft and childish and sweet, before the sandstorms and cigarettes. His hands rubs her neck, and the short hairs on the back of her scalp are prickling, she is lightheaded, the calluses catching on her skin—

Zie comes up gasping like zie had been anesthetized for years.

Poison is singing softly, “sing me to sleep, and then leave me alone…”

 Zie comes up gasping like zie had been anesthetized for years. Who’s to say zie hadn’t been.

Zie shivers, and zie is alive.

Zie is lying in the dust outside of Zone Three. The Trans Am doors are all open, like everyone had got out in a hurry. Was it zir fast breathing that let them know zie wasn’t just resting, and had zie been screaming like zie did when zie first came out into the Zones?

Zie doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. Now Zie wears a red leather jacket zir brother designed and zir hair is short and blond and spiky and beautiful. Zir name is Kobra. Zir laser gun is polished bright. Her brother’s name is Party, and he still sings zir to sleep.

~

It’s tense in the car. They’re too close to the site of the bombing to feel comfortable stopping, though retaliation won’t be too swift or too great if they’d tried to stop closer. They drive so fast that the wind is an omnipresent ringing roar, so loud the radio’s mostly drowned out. Or maybe it isn’t on. Kobra’s head is a blur. Zie’s got a sandstorm skull right now, but they’re still sprinting. They’re two zones away before Jet finally hits the brakes. Kobra’s sprawled in the back seat, zir head in Party’s lap while Ghoul leans against zir side. The pressure always makes zir calmer, and the soft brush of zir brother’s fingers through zir hair is welcome. A small voice in zir head: you chose to let them touch you.  If you said “stop touching me” they would stop right away. You are safe and you are strong.

It’s a broken down shack, door half-off the hinges. But for tonight, it will be their shelter. The temperature’s dropped, and Kobra can’t feel the fire of wood splintered before the force of a homemade bomb anymore. Just goosebumps and being an ant on the desert surface. The stars stretch huge and grand, and the Last Highway cuts through, sharp and brilliant.

Kobra thinks about the time when it was called the Milky Way and zir heart aches.

Zie is sitting on the front steps, thinking of old books and old times that zie never knew while Party and Ghoul and Jet finish their meals of Power Pup cold from the can. They’d stocked up on food before they’d gone looking for trouble, but they wanted to eat sparingly. Kobra had know zie wouldn’t be able to force down any Power Pup, so Jet had brought out an orange (small and withered but smelling so good, with the small strings that were fun to fiddle with and must be picked up in order for the texture to be acceptable) and a small sealed package of crackers with bright liquidy cheese to dip them into.

Kobra eats alone on the front steps, wrapped in zir blanket, and listens to zir breath and the laughter of the other three. Zie thinks of a lot of things, checks in on zir body and zir brain. Someone must have undone zir binder during zir panic attack, since it’s on but hanging loosely against zir ribs. Zir back is a little achy, zir feet are a little sore. Zir’s got a stinging cut on the back of zir hand, and there’s a slice of skin between zir jacket and zir pants that’s uncovered. Zir readjusts zir shirt to cover it, and then sets to checking in on zir skull insides.

It’s a mess. Zir brother wearing a pink feather boa around his neck. The stranger zie met that the club back when they’d still been in the guardhouse. The club that had been attacked, where they’d found the girl. The one with big teeth and striped hair and a laser smile. Kobra wonders if they are still alive. Lines crisscrossing between the stars making shapes and grids like a map of Battery City public transportation lines.

“Life’s weird as fuck, man,” zie grouses at Ghoul, who’s leaning over zir out the doorway by the perilously crumbly-looking doorjamb.

“True,” he says, surveying the dark desert with zir. “Wanna cuddle?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh! Me too!” Jet calls from inside.

“You’re all awful and you’re gonna cuddle without me,” Party groans.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ghoul says. Kobra tosses zir orange peels into the desert for birds to peck and wind to blow away and tightens zir blanket around zir shoulders. Ghoul blows a kiss at the wide spread of stars and the Trans-Am. The door doesn’t shut all the way, but they’ll be warm when they huddle together. It’s a night for late whispering. The stars are all talking to each other too. They burn so bright, but they must get cold sometimes, too, so far apart.

Relief opens Kobra’s chest up and softens zir muscles. The Girl is safe. They are safe.

And today, Kobra thinks, they were brave, too.

~

They are back on the road. Back in the road, it feels like the thrum of the Trans-Am’s engine is pushing the blood through Kobra’s veins. Party drives, but this time Kobra takes shotgun. There’s more space to stretch zir long legs out, and with the view of the faded grey highway unfurling in front of them instead of the backs of seats, it keeps Kobra from feeling trapped. Party turns the radio up. Kobra can see Jet in the rearview mirror, hair whipping partway out the window, can hear Ghoul drumming on the seatbacks.

Kobra takes deep breaths, feeling the dry sandy air scrape the back of zir throat. The sun’s going down and it’s getting cold. Zir jacket is welcome pressure on zir arms and across zir back.

Another day in the true lives of the fabulous killjoys. 


End file.
